


In Other Words

by butalasearwax



Series: You Can Blame It On Ol' Blue Eyes [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Idiots in Love, M/M, SO MUCH FLUFF, but then happy, but then sad, idk what this even is, im so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-06 07:18:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3125798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butalasearwax/pseuds/butalasearwax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three words.  I and Love and You.<br/>They never say it.<br/>At least, not in as many words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Other Words

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [换而言之](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3132452) by [hamLock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamLock/pseuds/hamLock)



> IM SO SORRY I BLAME FRANK SINATRA FOR ALL OF THIS

_I love you._  
It’s simple, really.  
First person pronoun, to feel a “profoundly tender and passionate affection for another person”, second person pronoun.  
Three words.  
I and Love and You.  
They never say it.  
At least, not in so many words.

  
\----

“Hey Buck!” Steve calls into the dusty space between the couch and the floor. “Buck, have you seen my pencil?”  
Bare feet come into view on the bare floor through the space and the couch creaks as Bucky puts weight on it, leaning on his elbows and looking down at Steve.  
“What’s wrong with the one behind your ear?” And Steve can’t see the smile, with his head to the ground and his arm braving that space into which everything disappears, but he can hear it.  
“No, my good one, for drawing, I just had it, it was right-”  
“Here?”  
And when Steve looks up, he barely sees the pencil twirling between nimble fingers for the smile on Bucky’s face.

\----

It’s raining a November rain, the kind that really should be snow. Steve’s got his toes tucked under a pillow on the couch, sketchbook open and balancing on his knee. He’s not really paying attention, staring at the rain trace patterns on the windows as his pencil traces patterns into the margins. It’s nothing new, pages full of absent minded doodles. An eye here, a jawline there, always the same. Steve looks down and it’s fingers curling around a cup of coffee today.  
“You predicting the future, Stevie?” Bucky says, pushing a mug into Steve’s cold hands.  
“Thanks.”  
“Coffee’s shit, but it beats the rain.”  
“I like your coffee.” Steve takes a sip, hides a grimace in the mug. It really is shit.  
“That what you keep me around for?”  
“Well it sure as hell ain’t for your snoring.”  
“Fuck you, Rogers, I don’t snore.”  
“No, but you talk in your sleep.”

\----

  
It takes him a few times to get the key in the lock. He smells like whisky and perfume, he knows, and when no one’s in the apartment when he finally stumbles in, he thinks maybe Steve’s wisened up and left for something better, because God knows he deserves it.  
But no, he walks around the corner into the tiny kitchen and Steve slides a chipped mug across the counter to him, pouring a second cup of black coffee for himself.  
“Could hear you humming all the way down the hall,” Steve says to Bucky’s raised eyebrow.  
“Wasn’t hummin’”  
“Buck”  
“‘m just happy, ‘s all.”  
“‘bout what?”  
“The future, Stevie. Skirts are getting shorter and coffee’s getting better and-” he jabs a finger at the newspaper on the counter and Steve laughs at the optimism about the coffee, “and Stark’s gonna send us to the moon or somethin’, I swear to God, or-” Steve’s leaning against the windowsill, closes his eyes for a moment (maybe imagining it all now), eyelashes fanning out, a small smile tugging at the corner of his thin mouth- “or they’ll find a way to make you see color because you gotta see the color of your eyes in the moonlight, Stevie, you gotta.” He crosses the space between them and looks out the window. “Fly me to the moon, Stevie,” he says, voice low.  
“Now I know you’re drunk.”  
“Nah, you gave me coffee.” He looks down into the mug, then back up to Steve. “You’re too good to me.” He takes a sip, makes a face, smiles. “Even if the coffee is still shit.”

\----

He shoves his hand in his pocket, rummaging in the furthest lint-filled corners, then tries the other pocket. Then the other. And the other. His fingers fumble over the empty space, stiff and red with cold.  
“Dammit.”  
Bucky huffs a laugh, shakes his head.  
“You know, Rogers,” he says, crossing the front porch and nudging over the innocent looking brick, third to the left. “One day you’ll get locked out and I won’t be around to remember where you keep your spare key.”

\----

Steve comes home, cold and tired- he’s always cold and tired- to cushions on the floor and the smell of coffee in the air. Bucky takes his bag and grabs his hand and pulls him under the threadbare blanket draped between the couch and the table over the cushions in a makeshift tent. Steve hopped and kicked off his shoes along the way and Bucky dropped his bag and now they just sit, light filtering in through the holes in the blanket, sipping the same shitty coffee and Steve tracing patterns on Bucky’s wrist.  
“Hey Buck,” he mumbles, hovering in that dangerous place between consciousness and sleep where it’s so easy to say everything and so hard to take anything back.  
“Yeah?”  
A pause.  
“Thanks. For this.” What this is, well.  
“No problem. All you gotta do is shine my shoes, kid.”  
“Course.” And he falls asleep with fingers still on Bucky’s wrist and steady breathing beside him.

\----

“Here,” Bucky says, handing Steve a bowl of soup. “Eat it.”  
It’s not really something you can eat, Steve thinks as he looks down into the bowl. It’s more like water with some salt and pepper and a few shreds of cabbage. But he’s shivering and his chest feels heavy and tight as Bucky crawls under the thin blankets with him and slips an arm around his waist. He takes a sip.  
“Fuck that’s hot, holy shit.”  
“Awwww, thanks darlin’,” Bucky mumbles into his shoulder, placing his cold lips on Steve’s even colder collarbone in a kiss.  
“Not you, the soup, idiot.” But Steve eats (drinks) it anyways and thinks maybe it’s not just the asthma making his chest tight.

\----

“I had him on the ropes.”  
“I know you did.”

\----

Bucky winks and Steve smiles, so Bucky smiles.

\----

“I had him on the ropes.”  
“I know you did.”

\----

Bucky falls and Bucky screams, so Steve screams. Damn the end of the line.

\----

He breathes it into the half empty bottle of whisky in the bombed out shell of a bar in London that looks too much like his heart. He says it in the tears that don’t fall from red eyes because there’s none left. The burn of the whisky on his raw throat whispers it back to him, echoing the words that despite all this he never said.  
Peggy finds him and he almost says it, out loud, the words almost spill from his lips, but-  
“I can’t get drunk,” he says and somehow it’s still the same thing.

\----

"Bucky?"  
"Who the hell is Bucky?"

\----

Steve leans against the doorframe.  
Bucky’s hair is longer and his left arm shines in the sun and Steve can see the color of his eyes in the moonlight and people have been to the moon and the floors don’t creak and the windows don’t let breaths of frozen air creep their way into the room and the blankets are thick and heavy and the soup is warm and hearty but Steve still forgets his key and the cushions still end up on the floor sometimes and Steve will still shine Bucky’s shoes and still gets in fights and Bucky still finds all the lost pencils and the margins are still full of absent minded doodles, an eye here, a jawline there, always the same.  
And the coffee is still shit.  
“Dinner?” Steve asks, looking up from under his lashes, a smile tugging at the corner of his thin mouth.  
“You asking me out on a date, Rogers?”  
“You saying yes?”  
“Pick me up at eight?” Bucky says.  
“On the dot.” And Steve can feel the smile break across his face.

\----

“Punk.”  
“Jerk.”

\----

In other words.  
_I love you._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this!!!!!!! I don't even know what is is I wrote half of it during physics. All came about when I put "Fly Me To The Moon" on the record player.


End file.
